NEW UPDATES POSTED BELOW:
I was link surfing today over at Dellers, and I found myself looking at the long list of bios for the 1010 team on their website. I noted something curious in the bio posted on Splattergate’s designer Franny Armstrong, because it was rather off the wall. She listed a “guilty pleasure”. Well no harm, we all have those, but at the same time she says her Actual job: “Asking powerful people for money and/or emissions cuts“.
The “emissions cuts” part I get. But wait a minute…not in season blueberries? Hmmm.
Now I don’t know much about growing blueberries, but I did find this on a BBC gardening site:
Blueberries produce fruit on branches that were produced the previous year. For the first two or three years of a blueberry’s life it’s not necessary to prune it much, apart from keeping the plant tidy. After this, blueberries need regular pruning to maintain plant vigour and high quality berry production. Prune them between November and March when the plant is dormant.
They need cold weather apparently:
“These bushes are hardy and require a minimum of 750 hours accumulated chilling time below 8 degrees centigrade in order to produce good yields of berries, so please do not put them into your greeenhouse over the winter.”
OK, so you can’t grow them “off season” in a local greenhouse. That means UK “off season” blueberries have to come someplace where the “off season” is opposite, like another hemisphere.
Looking more into blueberries, I find this from a Latin American Markets site on Chilean blueberry production:
While the US is the main importer of Chilean blueberries, Europe, and in particular the UK, are also strong markets.
“We’ve seen an explosion in UK blueberry consumption over the past two to three years,” says Hortifrut’s Francisco Ortuzar. “Unlike some other parts of Europe, the market is familiar with blueberries and category managers have done a good job of promoting the fruit.”
Huh, imagine that. Demand for blueberries in the UK is ummm ‘exploding’. Given what I know, I would imagine the demand would increase in the “off season” when no local blueberries can be harvested.
I wonder how they get there? Oh, here we go:
Tesco blueberries are harvested in Argentina and are flown to the UK for sale.
So I think it would be safe to assume that Franny is eating off season blueberries, flown in from Chile or Argentina using the speedy but horrible CO2 belching airplanes to preserve freshness.
Yet WE are the ones that have to reduce our consumption of things like “guilty pleasures”. Ya know, modern, guilty, dirty things like air travel, cars, and incandescent lights (though I do like the new LED replacements), to keep the planet from “burning up” due to CO2 emissions. And if we don’t, or give an indifferent shrug like those school kids in her movie…we get the red button.
She also mentions in her bio:
“Not flying to America or Australia to launch my climate movie”
…yet Franny can have her off season jet set blueberries. No pressure to eliminate that. I guess Franny never stopped to think how “not in season blueberries” get to her local shop.
Now that’s just plane stupid.
UPDATE: 8:05 PM PST 10/7/10 I was informed by email of some silliness. For the record, somebody who obviously didn’t like this story has signed up my name as a “supporter” at the 10:10 website, here: http://www.1010global.org/uk/people along with Christopher Monckton, and James Dellingpole. This is of course false, and the product of a simple minded prank. I don’t know what this stupidity will do for them, especially since it is obvious none of us would sign up to 10:10. Here’s the screen cap:
UPDATE2: 11:40PM PST 10/7/10
It appears the application of names is being handled by a static list superimposed at the website. The people counter continues to rise, but the list does not change. Here’s a screencap from 11:38PM of the “people” page at http://www.1010global.org/uk/people
If you visit the other pages on the website, you’ll find that static list with my name on it, along with Monckton and Delingpole, superimposed on it, even though the counter has advanced from 94,885 to 94,910 signups, a total of 25 names, more than enough to move the list down.
But it appears the “legal” page here: http://www.1010global.org/legal has what appears to be a correctly updated list:
How fun! Let’s watch the amusement unfold.
Since the good people at 10:10 are convincing so many others to reduce their emissions, shouldn’t they be able to cheat a little and eat their off-season blueberries and drink their bottled water, etc.? A type of offset: get two people to pledge to reduce emissions and you don’t have to.
That’s it – my 10:10 plan: I’m not going to fly to England for strawberries and cream. Does that mean I’m safe from her Red Button? Is it a problem that I had no plans to fly to England?
“David L says:
October 7, 2010 at 5:49 pm
How big is AlGores electric bill every month?”
Doesn’t matter. He’ll offset it to the rest of us carbon tax paying drones.
“STS says:
October 7, 2010 at 6:55 pm
One also wonders how much energy is used in the entire process of film making … me thinks the creation of propaganda doesn’t come cheap!”
In one of the clips Franny says that she added up all the energy use, car\taxi rides and air trips etc and summed up that total C02 emissions were 90 tonnes. Seems a bit on the low side IMO.
She knows exactly how she gets them. she probably insists they are organic and everything. Like all elitests she wants us all to do as she says not as she does.
Stevo;
“…If she drove to the supermarket to buy the fruit, that would release more CO2.”
———————————————–
Even if your claim was true, which I doubt (I actually couldn’t care less. One person’s infinitesimal CO2 emissions are meaningless even if CO2 was harmful) do you think Ms. Frannie always walks to the store?
Ms. Frannie appears to have a problem with McDonalds’ fast food, and enetrtains notions of sabotaging McDonalds’ property.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/06/positively-giddy-franny
It gives me great pleasure to be able to spring to the defence of the charming Franny what’shername.
You are maligning her, people!
She didn’t say “FRESH bluberries”.
In my errant youth, I canned 75 quarts a year of wild blueberries. Unlike many other fruits and veggies, blueberries don’t suffer much through preserving.
Her guilt is about the electricity to keep the berries frozen, not the aviation fuel to keep them circling over Heathrow for twenty minutes.
Her blueberries are probably grown in Yorkshire and cleaned by hand by pre-pubescent ‘No Pressure’ extras.
Don’t let’s be beastly to the greenies.
(With apologies to Noel Coward.)
Stevo says:
October 7, 2010 at 5:44
you must be very ignorant if you think that importing fruit is a significant source of CO2. It is trivial. If she drove to the supermarket to buy the fruit, that would release more CO2.
Apparently she eats them by the truck load.
I suppose “off season” means “frozen”? Here in Norway such berries grow everywhere. We pick them in late summer and put them in the freezer. You can get them in the shop as well, usually frozen.
“UPDATE: 8:05 PM PST 10/7/10 I was informed by email of some silliness. For the record, somebody who obviously didn’t like this story has signed up my name as a “supporter” at the 10:10 website, here: http://www.1010global.org/uk/people
along with Christopher Monckton, and James Dellingpole.”
I am confused by the “People on board” counter and the “Recent Signups” list on this page:
http://www.1010global.org/uk/people
When I refresh the page occasionally, the “People on board” counter number seems to go up, but the “Recent Signups” names don’t seem to change much. Since Anthony’s update above there have been 16 new “People on board”, but only two new names have been added to the top of the “Recent Signup” list. I wonder why…
She could do better. Our ex Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took 114 people to Jokenhagen with him, including his hairdresser! All in the supposed name of reducing footprints eh? Yup.. hypocrites..
Blimey – I just took a look at the 10:10 website, and Just the Facts is in great company – recent signups include Monckton, the Pole, and our own dear Anthony! Now it’s the wee small hours of the UK morning – what’s the betting they make it past Franny or Eugenica’s first cup of Fair Trade coffee?
Franny Unræd, (meaning bad-counsel), otherwise (another pun) Æthelred the Unready.
Sorry, but English history courses through my veins, thankfully not windmill vanes!
Armstrong read zoology at University College, London and her thesis was “Is the human species suicidal?”
On 2 November 2009, Armstrong was threatened in the streets of north London by three girls whom she described as looking “like something straight out of central casting”. They pushed her against a car and pulled out an iron bar. She cried for help and was rescued by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who was cycling by. He chased off the attackers and then insisted on escorting Armstrong home. During this 20-minute journey, she suggested that he adopt the 10:10 policy for the tube and that he pedestrianise Camden Town. He replied that he wanted to pedestrianise areas across London.
Hell’s teeth, Boris Johnson has much to answer for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franny_Armstrong
“Perry says:
October 7, 2010 at 11:17 pm ”
That, almost, reads like Boris was setup.
From her wikipedia page it would seem that she has very quickly reverted to type after the exploding kids debacle :
“We ‘killed’ five people to make No Pressure – a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change,”
Insincerity, they name is Franny Armstrong.
Franny’s twitter update about the 10:10 film…..
“Oh oh oh oh oh just seen final version of #1010’s explosive mini movie oh oh oh oh oh oh gulp yeah oh oh eek oh…..”
hmmm. Looks like she was a bit concerned to me.
The sad thing is that it sounds as if she actually believes that. Climate ALWAYS changes. It is NEVER stable and there is no way to make it stable. So if climate always changes and people are dying from climate change, then it means that people are always dying, which we already know.
But I guess what I don’t get is why she doesn’t understand that many millions more people would die from a 2 degree cooling than from a 2 degree warming. And not only would people die but entire plant species would disappear from the ranges where they currently live.
We are currently about 2 degrees cooler than we were during the warmest period of the Holocene. Sea levels are about 2 meters lower now than they were at that time. While we have had periods of warming and cooling, the general trend for the past 2000 years has been one of cooling. Warm periods tend not to get quite as warm as the previous warm period and cold periods tend to get a little colder than the previous one. The Little Ice Age was the coldest period since the Younger Dryas and that covers pretty much the entire Holocene. Let me state that again, the recent Little Ice Age was the coldest period we have seen in about 13,000 years and we have still not recovered to what the temperatures were before that period. It would appear that we have recovered to about all we are going to as the 1998 peak was lower than the 1933 peak and the 2010 peak was lower than the 1998 peak and indications are that we have a cold stretch coming ahead of us.
She actually believes that things WE are doing are impacting climate enough to kill 300,000 people. She probably believe switching in a curly lightbulb will impact her local climate in some measurable way. The greatest consumer of the very energy sources she hates most and the one whose consumption is increasing most rapidly is a country that is exempt from all international treaties regulating the emissions resulting from that consumption (China). They add a coal power plant every week or two. They are exempt from Kyoto and all other agreements. Does she believe that is an accident?
If the entire British Isles were sterilized and all human life scrubbed from the surface of the earth there, it would not make even the tiniest bit of difference. China’s emissions will increase enough in 18 months to replace all that the UK produces today. She has no sense of scale. She can work all she wants to have emissions reduced 10% or 20% or 50%, it won’t make a damned bit of difference.
She is what amounts to a religious fundamentalist and her religion is “climate change”. She just “believes” and she can not see that it is really a futile exercise. But I am sure she can recite her scripture chapter and verse.
Patrick Davis says: October 7, 2010 at 11:35 pm
“Perry says: October 7, 2010 at 11:17 pm ”
That, almost, reads like Boris was setup.
My thoughts exactly.
Another foot shot by a greenie group.
Sea Shepherd accused by former skipper of sinking protest boat
Ady Gil deliberately scuttled after collision with whaling ship, says Peter Bethune in public feud with group’s founder
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/07/sea-shepherd-accused-protest-boat
When I see the “greenies” protesting in a public square in Beijing, maybe then I will believe they are serious and really believe in what they say.
Perhaps the blueberries deserve credit for inspiring Splattergate. Imagine the scene (h/t Calvin and Hobbes) where Frannie is making up her favourite smoothie while thinking of what to do with all these naughty denialists. In they go to the food processor – what’s to be done with them? In goes the banana – aren’t those Miliband boys nice, and so understanding of negative feedback! She ponders the bright shiny red Go button – just like the Red Noses for Comic Relief, there has to be an angle here somewhere. she presses the button. Splat! Eureka!!
Come on folks, give her a break. We may not agree with her policies and belief, but her honesty is refreshing in an area of double speak and confusion. Importing fruit and veg from other countries a lot of the time makes no difference to climate change goals as the spare aircraft capacity is used which ensures aircraft do not fly empty. Her subtle dig at amount of high profile climate change activists who fly around the world to spread their message is well made. It looks like this person not only talks the talk, but largely walks the walk. I do wonder though if she like many career climate activists I have met is a trustifarian? There does seem to be a remarkably high number of these fortunate people involved in such activities.
Desert Yote: While I know where the saying came from, in this case the word “useful” is redundant.
We all have our little guilty pleasures.
Here’s warmist extraordinaire Tim Flannery discussing all things sustainable kitchen-wise with Australian cookbook doyen Margaret Fulton over a bottle of San Pellegrino (bottled in Italy – it contains uranium).
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/05/28/cmFLANNERY_wideweb__470x304,0.jpg
RE the off-season blueberries and the maintenance of blatantly false supporter names: Just more evidence that Greenies are cretins.